


DOG REAL

by Cosmignon



Category: Dice Funk Podcast D&D Campaign
Genre: Also theres gotta be a better way to tag courage's name, F/M, There's a few other characters in this fic but those are the only 2 that rly matter lol, also idk if this counts as crack fic?, by also having a character named courage. whom is a dog, don't want to invoke the wrath of the Courage The Cowardly Dog fandom, wah anyways
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-03
Updated: 2019-05-03
Packaged: 2020-02-16 19:21:44
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,755
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18697651
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cosmignon/pseuds/Cosmignon
Summary: Some Olivia & Courage interaction by way of a late night AU scenario that possessed me like a malevolent spirit.





	DOG REAL

**Author's Note:**

> You know that trope of "a robot has become human!"? Picture that, but, it's a single celled organism that happens to inhabit a metallic body... and then instead of becoming human it's becoming a Three Headed Dog Man. That's where I'm coming from and I wasn't sure whether to post this but someone on twitter told me to "post it you coward" so please enjoy.

Solitaire didn’t sleep, at least not in the way most humanoid species did. They didn’t pass out, let their bodies lady unconscious for several hours. They didn’t go into a trance like others did either. No, instead they simply slowed down, every so often. They could otherwise keep going for as long as they had the fuel to keep them going and the bodies to propel them forward.

So Courage was quite startled when he found himself waking with a start.

The last thing he remembered was going through several articles he had open on his phone - research into old sol movies, just for the fun of it. Olivia had put the idea in his head when talking about her own favorites, and he’d wanted to know more about them.

He looked around his room, and through the vision his several eyes gave him, he saw his phone lying on the floor. He must have dropped it. He was sitting in an oval-shaped chair, so he just had to lean down and…

Fall over.

His body shifted, and he tumbled out of his chair before he could register how it happened. He landed on the floor with a concerning thud. Not concerning for any fear of damage - but because it lacked the characteristic sound of metal meeting solid ground.

Then he felt it - a strange ache in the side of his shoulder. Usually, when his shell took any damage, all he felt was the rattling vibrations. Otherwise, he was alright. This was not alright. This was… pain.

Courage clambered about on the floor, his phone forgotten. He struggled to even get on all fours before the weight of his own body fell back on the floor. This was why he fell the first time - his center of balance was totally off. But why was it off? Why was he hurting?

He touched a hand against his arm, and the confusing sensations amplified intensely. His metal shell was soft, no longer strong and nearly impenetrable, but delicate and fragile. He felt a surge of fear - he was unprotected from the elements. He also noticed how the sensation of touching his shell made his hand feel so strange. A sense of touch in general was something he only needed so far as a way to gauge the pressure he put on things. Now, it was just there, and telling him far too much about the texture of fur on his arm and the warmth of his body and the cold sting of the floor that made him shiver.

Instinct struck him, and he tried to escape himself. Like he’d done on Fermat, he tried to eject his small, fragile body from his shell. It was a last resort, and he couldn’t think straight as his body overloaded him with signals that almost felt like they weren’t his own. He opened his mouth, and tried to move. All that succeeded in doing was thrusting his head forward. His front-most facing snout hit the floor, and he grunted in pain.

He whined at the sound of his voice. He wasn’t supposed to have one - he spoke through electrical impulses, through thoughts, and actions. But there was his own voice, trying to shake itself out of his body.

There was something seriously wrong here. He was… his shell. He wasn’t sure why, or how, or to really what extent what that even meant yet. But something had fundamentally changed, and it was terrifying.

Deep inside him, a flare of determination and courage burned through his body and mind. He forced his hands in front of himself and pushed them into the ground, to push himself up. He couldn’t just lie on the floor like this, panicking. He had to get up, be brave, and find out what was going on.

He shook at the effort of pushing himself into an upright position. Then, he put one hand on the chair and another back on the ground, before pushing himself off of the ground completely. His legs wobbled under the new distribution of weight through his body, but he adjusted himself through several precarious states of falling over again before he settled into a standing position.

He noticed how he had to pause, and let himself open his mouth to the air and suck it in. Breathing, that’s what it was. Not in the way he’d always known it, just taking in oxygen through his skin, but pumping air in and out like a sickly vacuum pump.

It made him feel a little sick, which was compounded by vertigo. He took a step forward, and desperately struggled for a good moment to stay upright. His next step was much, much slower. With a calculated shuffle, he was soon enough making his way across the room.

When he reached the door, he slammed a hand against the button to open it. As the door slid upward, he made an attempt to call for someone to help. His thought was clear as ever, _“Something is wrong, please, come help me figure this out.”_

The sound that left his mouth was a confused, hoarse yell that startled him as it echoed through the halls of the Snallygaster.

He stepped forward, and made new, quieter noises. Then, he remembered:

_“Objectivus? Help?”_

_“I heard a yell! Was that you?”_ Objectivus’ voice wormed its way through his head.

_“Yes. Very Confused. Can’t Explain? Ask Help? From? Anyone?”_

_“I’ll uh, relay the message then! Not everyone’s awake you know.”_

_“Know. Fine. Please?”_

Courage stood in the middle of the hallway, looking near frantically around as other crew-mates slowly started the pop their heads out of their rooms, or around the corner. Some murmured, and one or two asked what was up, but Courage couldn’t respond. He felt a pounding ache in his body, near his chest, that should not have been there. He froze, and couldn’t think what else to tell Objectivus to tell the others.

“What’s the matter, dear?” The captain spoke up from behind him.

With his arms held up cautiously to center himself, Courage shuffled his feet around to face her. “S…” He struggled to…make sounds, with his mouth. Several seconds passed as he fought against himself - he wanted to be able to communicate on his own. Finally, “S…something. Wrrong. With…shell.” He flailed his arms around uselessly, as if that would illustrate his point that he felt very uncomfortable right now in a way he had never felt before.

The captain paused for a moment, looking over Courage with squinted, discerning eyes. “Olivia!” She called out quickly, an air of authority to her voice, “Might need you to wake up! Please!”

Courage’s eyes darted across the hall, to Olivia’s room. In the corner of his eye, though it was hard to distinguish where periphery in one eye stopped and vision in another began, he saw the others who had peered out at the scene look expectantly to her room as well.

There was a terribly long pause, perhaps only long to Courage, it was hard to tell how everything was supposed to feel today. Then, Olivia’s door snapped open, and the merfolk doctor stepped out with a straight posture and her lab-coat already draped over her body. Her face betrayed a hint of exhaustion, but Courage felt a surge of confidence rise in him that need not come from the power of his conduit.

This would be OK, he thought. Olivia was a doctor, she could figure this out. Tempestuous feelings churned around in the pit of his shell and he felt like he would fall over again.

“What’s the problem?” Olivia asked as she walked closer to the scene.

“Shhhh,” Courage flailed a bit more, “Shhell??”

Olivia looked toward Courage with a quirked eyebrow.

“He seems unwell,” the captain chimed in. “And he looks…” she paused, and pouted for a moment, “…Off, too. But I just woke up and I assume you’d know better than me what to do.”

Olivia yawned, “Well, I just woke up too, but, I can handle that.” She reached over to Courage and put a hand on his shoulder. He shuffled under the weight, and re-balanced himself. Then Olivia said, “You alright to come with me to the med station?”

Courage nodded his head. Olivia gave him a comforting smile, and his head felt dizzier than ever, for just a moment.

“OK everyone, show’s over.” Olivia held her hands up to quell the non-existent chatter. Everyone had been too confused about what was going on to chime in after the captain had spoken up. Those who had popped their heads out quite unceremoniously retreated back to where they came. Even the captain slipped back toward the opposite end of the hallway, though not before giving Olivia and Courage a thumbs up.

Courage focused his attention on Olivia. Courage spoke with a hesitation in his voice. “Thank… you.” 

“Well don’t thank me yet, I’ve still got to actually do my job.” Olivia started walking down the hall. She stopped, and looked over her shoulder, “Good to walk?”

Courage shuffled forward, his arms still held out from his body. “Good… slow.”

“Gotcha.” She walked forward again, but at a pace Courage could keep up with. The two of them were silent during the 5 minutes it took to get to the medical station.

Olivia pushed a few buttons on a console affixed to one wall of the room, and a bed for medical examination popped up from the floor. “Take a seat there, k?” Her aura of calm assurance kept Courage in silence. He nodded, and made his way over to the bed.

As soon as he sat down, his hands and knees vibrated - no, they were trembling. His breathing got heavier, and all of the sensations he had tried to ignore through the effort of walking caught back up to him. His arm hurt, his snout hurt, his head, his feet. It wasn’t even that they hurt very badly, just that they hurt at all. He wanted to explain so much about how everything felt like too much, but all he could manage was a pathetic whine. He looked down at the floor, so he couldn’t see Olivia’s reaction to that sad display.

He saw Olivia’s shoes come into view, and she patted him on the shoulder again. “I need you to look up at me.”

Courage tilted his head up, and locked eyes with Olivia. Her eyes were yellow and pink, like the light speckles of yellow that dotted the dark blue skin around her face.

He just barely noticed her press something small up to his chest.

“Try breathing in real deep for me.”

He did his best.

“And exhale.”

His shoulders slumped as the wind left him.

“Good, good,” Olivia nodded her head, thinking something Courage could only just hope was positive. Then she pulled out a thin metal rod, and pointed it toward his eyes.

“This will be bright.” And it was.

For the next several minutes, Courage went through a few more diagnostic checks that he was unaccustomed to. Checking his temperature, using the same flashlight to check inside his head (a small part of him hoped would have resulted in Olivia finding _him_ and getting him out of this gross fleshy nightmare shell), and for some odd reason, hitting his knee with a rock on a stick? He didn’t question any of it. Olivia had no extra commentary, only instructions for Courage to follow and warnings for what would come next.

Between each check, Olivia silently wrote down notes on a clipboard. After one last check -wrapping a strange uncomfortable strip of fabric around his arm, constricting it, and deflating it- Olivia spent much longer on her notes. She wrote, read over it, wrote some more, and every so often looked up at Courage. Courage, waiting for her to finish, just stared at her now. Focusing his attention on anything but himself helped him keep calm. And Olivia was something very nice to focus on.

After minutes of writing, Olivia sighed and said, “I need to go check a few things. You stay here, alright?”

“Okay.” Courage’s voice felt a smidgen more assured.

“Thank you for being patient, buddy.” Olivia took her clipboard and walked out of the room. Courage was back to being stuck in his own body. It was starting to feel less suffocating than it had earlier, when he’d woken up. Things were settling down.

He wasn’t sure this time how long it took for Olivia to get back. He just knew he got distracted by looking down at his hands. He flexed them open and closed, open and closed. His hands were pink, like his shell usually was, but they also had the faintest outline of fur. He wondered if he might also have claws?

“Hey there Courage, how you holdin’ up?” Olivia’s voice caught Courage off guard. He looked up to see her brushing a stray strand of her hair-like fins from her face. A burning sensation struck his face, and he shook his head to shake off the feeling.

He made a guttural noise at first, then slowly forced it into words, “Aaahhgggoood. Good? ...No. But. Better…”

Olivia smiled tenderly. “I’m glad you’re feeling better.” She lifted up her clipboard, “I did some sleuthing around about what the hell happened, and there’s good news, and bad news. What do you want to hear first?”

Courage weighed the options. He could probably guess the bad news, he’d already known what it was from the moment he’d pushed himself off the ground back in his own room. So did he want to hear that first, and confirm it, even if it made him feel sick? Or did he want to save it for last, in the vein hope that maybe it was just a very complex and convoluted hallucination he’d been having?

“…Bad News?”

Olivia flipped a paper up over her clipboard, “Ok. Well, some context first. I’m sure you’re smart enough to realize you went through a metamorphosis of sorts. To be more specific, _some_ body _may_ have flown the ship through an unpredictable space-time anomaly. You know, as you do on a typical Friday night.” She emphasized her words, sounding less like she was mad at the captain and more just… amused? Annoyed? She shrugged and continued. “I can explain more later. Important thing though – seems like it just affected you, because of your unique anatomical situation, and it’s not something any of us can help reverse.”

Courage whined. “Stuck Like This?” His voice came out much more pathetic than he would have liked.

“Well, no. That’s the good news!” Olivia leaned over to Courage and turned to another page of notes. Here, there were chicken scratch equations in two distinct, but equally illegible handwriting styles. “Ok so, long story short, me and Sasha did some puzzling over the whole thing, and you should be back to your old self in 48 hours.”

“ _Should_?”

“Give or take a few hours. The math’s hard to articulate but trust me, you’re going to be alright.”

Courage went through the facts in his head. 48 hours. That was barely any time at all. So long as the crew had nothing pressing to do, he could manage that. A spark of fear at the unplanned contingencies was alive in the back of his mind, but… he looked over to Olivia, saw her assuring smile, and felt confident in believing her.

“O K. Good News… Thank You.”

“You’re welcome. Now, some bonus good news,” She flipped her notes back so they sat collected on her clipboard. “You’re also a very healthy dog… person… man. Heh.”

“Good!”

“Mhm! So, we can get out of this room now.” Olivia offered a hand to help Courage stand up, and he took it. “You need anything, like, you hungry?”

Courage paused to think as his feet once again wobbled to find balance on the ground - though not for nearly as long as last time. “Don’t… Know Hungry Feeling?”

“Well, just to be safe, how about we get you something to eat. I’m sure there’s something you’d like in the kitchen.”

“…O K.”

While still holding on to Olivia’s hand, he followed her out the door to the kitchen across the ship.

As they walked, Courage said, “Olivia?”

“Yeah?”

“Thank You.”

“You’re welcome. It’s the least I could do, and also like.. my job.” Olivia chuckled, “But I am very glad you’re alright.”

“Thank You.”


End file.
